Manipulation Russian propagandists turned the march of representatives of the Querdenker movement in Berlin into a “rally in support of peace with Russia”
Russian resources disseminate information that on August 3, 2024, about 20 thousand people rallied in the center of Berlin in support of peace with Russia and against arms supplies, in particular to Ukraine. The protesters allegedly carried banners and posters with the inscriptions: “Why are politicians not responsible for their actions?”, “Peace for all peoples!”, “Stop the war with Russia!”, “Friendship with Russia”, “I am not at war with Russia!”, “A world without weapons!”.
In fact, Russian propaganda sources manipulated the information, the StopFake project writes. This protest was dedicated to the fourth anniversary of the first such march of representatives of the Querdenker (Dissident) movement in Berlin. The movement was created in April 2020 to protest against the German government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Now participants in the movement oppose the basic principles of German domestic and foreign policy and call for “peace throughout the world”. Querdenker, however, does not offer realistic plans on how to achieve this. And the topic of reconciliation with Russia is far from the main one for representatives of the movement.
Querdenker's main focus is criticism of both the domestic and foreign policies of the German government. Among other things, the demonstrators are demanding Germany's withdrawal from NATO and a continued review of measures to contain the coronavirus.
About 12 thousand representatives of the movement gathered for the rally in August 2024. The German website RBB reported that some protesters waved flags with a dove of peace, while others held banners demanding that they “reconsider measures to combat coronavirus” and “punish those responsible”. Some participants held posters with the slogan “Create a world without weapons”, familiar from the peace movement in Germany in the 1980s. The peace symbol could be seen on several banners.
The Berliner Zeitung wrote that on separate posters the protesters depicted the logo of Compact magazine, classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as right-wing extremist and now banned. Some protesters chanted “döp dodö dop!” (“Foreigners away!”) and some carried posters of the AfD, the German right-wing party. However, the topic of reconciliation with Russia and “stopping arms supplies to Ukraine” is secondary for Querdenker. There is also no mention in the German press of such calls at demonstrations in Berlin.